These data on development finance can be downloaded in four different formats: Excel, TXT/CSV, PC-axis, and XML. Different formats (such as software development, research, etc.) serve the diverse needs of numerous audiences; therefore, a variety of formats ensures that the data can be used widely and for a multitude of purposes.

This is an important step in making information about development finance easier to extract, locate, and compare. The DAC's CRS is the only international standard able to produce robust activity-level data and reliable statistics on total development finance flows (ODA, OOF, ODF, etc.). The objective of converting CRS data is to ensure that this information has greater visibility and usability.

XML format is the computer-readable “mark-up” language used by programmers to extract and present data in a comparable and accessible way. Data will now also be comparable to the standard process put in place by the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI), with whom the OECD has worked closely together in this exercise.

-----

Technical Notes

What do you need to know?

Files were updated on 8 January 2016 with final and complete 2014 data.

General Notes

We have been advised by the IATI Technical Advisory Group on presentation/format of reporting and participating organisations (see code format below). Complete CRS transaction history is not presented as this is technically difficult to retrieve from our database and link the associated transactions. Therefore, each XML record is a separate CRS transaction. In order to reduce the CRS-IATI files size and in accordance with IATI standard 1.02, some of the standard column labels have been omitted (recipient name, etc.).